Computational thermal model for nanotube based electronic display

Electro-thermal transport in a new class of nanotube bundle transistors and their application to electronic displays is considered. The transistors are made of nanocomposites composed of isotropic 2D ensembles of nanotubes or nanowires in a plastic or glass substrate. The random nanotube network is generated numerically and simulated using a finite volume scheme. The voltage and spatial power distribution in the transistor is computed in the linearly-biased regime. The computed power distribution is used as Joule heat source in a Fourier heat transport model for the nanotube network and substrate and the temperature rise in tube network and substrate are predicted. The effect of tube-tube contact conductance, tube-substrate contact conductance and substrate-tube conductivity ratio on the temperature rise is analyzed. The effect of convective cooling on the temperature rise is investigated for a range of heat transfer coefficients between the display surface and the ambient air. The tube-substrate contact resistance emerges as a dominant resistive component for the tube temperature rise, but is found to be insignificant for the substrate temperature rise. Tube conductivity and tube-tube contact conductance are found to have only a minor effect on lateral heat spreading because the dominant resistance to heat removal lies on the substrate and the air side for the range of parameters investigated